I was surprised that the main stabling area and hay shed (small section of tin roof that connected the big shed to the smaller one) went up but the newer shed which was attached on the east side of those two didn’t go up.
The stabling section was originally a Chook Shed and the roof was of a combination steel and Karri beam construction.
No surprise with the hay shed going up, I did ask if they wanted me to wet down the hay but they said “It’s insured”. Anyway, I doubt it would have made any difference and there’s never enough time in these situations.
I haven’t had to deal with a cyclone yet but I’ve had the poop knocked out of me in 6m to 17m boats over short periods of time (30 minutes to 5-7 hours) and I seriously don’t know which I would prefer.
I believe the house or the stables could easily have been saved without risking life and limb but I doubt if both coil have been saved.
Let me quantify what I mean.
The property had a large area that was devoid of fuel, a good 10-15 acres. They had a good 3000 litres of bore water on a tank stand and it would be available even with a loss of electricity, gravity is a great thing.
Unfortunately there was not the necessary fire fighting equipment.
Everyone involved did the absolute correct thing, the fire brigade’s doing their bit could have easily saved the property (and I’m sure they would have loved too) but they can’t be everywhere and in reality their job profile is to reduce the risk as much as possible to the widest possible area.
These things happen, mostly to other people but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen to us. Regardless of where we live it is a good thing to write out a Mud Map/evacuation plan for a potential fire, cyclone, flood but always for a fire.
It doesn’t have to be a novel, it could just be as simple as In case of Fire grab wallet keys pets refreshments important documents and maybe give the Missus and kids a nudge, that doesn’t take many words to write
For most of my life, my fire plan has been to drive across the road to the beach or jetty. Okay it isn’t very elaborate but it will never fail to save me from fire if I can get to the edge of the Indian Ocean.
Would I be correct that you run through your cyclone checklist most years?
Is it around that time now, when you go through your list, check the necessaries, ponder the potential for improving the plan, factoring in any increases or decreases in significant people/pets to the plan?
PS Did you notice the Ford dual cab in the picture? There was nobody to drive it so they left it.
The Stable hand who it belongs to was Pumped that her Ranger was still standing yesterday morning.
